Intimacy

Guy #147 – Pretty woman…

I first saw Pretty Woman a full decade before I became sexually active. I particularly remember that scene where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts go down on a grand piano. Famously, this sex scene lacked any kissing, for Hollywood hookers don’t kiss on the mouth lest they get feelings.

Aged 13 and with no real interest in Julia Roberts, most of my empathy went toward the piano, yet I do remember getting Richard Gere’s frustration for not being allowed to kiss his mistress. I guess even at a young age I intuitively felt kissing is an integral part of sex.

Cut to me, some twenty years later:

I go on Grindr and find myself a twink less than 100 meters away. He says ‘Hi’ and follows up on that with an ass pic… As if I don’t know what ‘Hi’ means.

Proximity is a deciding factor in many gay relationships. This particular twink sends his location after I say ‘Hi’ back. Getting an ass pic-location combo from a cute twink within shouting distance doesn’t happen every day. Truth be told I’m not really in the mood for sex, but I’m even less in the mood for missing an opportunity to get any.

So when this twink asks for a picture of my penis, I send one, along with an extra body pic to sweeten the deal. He replies by giving me his address. I tell him I’ll be there in five minutes.

Three minutes later I find myself in Guy #147’s living room. He’s as cute as his selfie and I infer I’m no disappointment myself, as I’m shown the way to a bed. I make a clumsy attempt at small talk, asking my date what he does for a living. He answers by asking me to stay away from the window. Across the street is a department store Guy #147 happens to work at and he doesn’t want his colleagues to see him having a sex date.

Foregoing further attempts at being sociable I start touching Guy #147. He touches me back, so naturally I head inbound and kiss Guy #147 on the lips. He pulls back immediately.
“I don’t kiss,” Guy #147 tells me bluntly.
“Okay,” I say, trying to remain calm and cool, but I suppose I do a poor job hiding my disappointment. Sex without kissing is like a salad without dressing, a healthy disappointment that leaves you wanting more even after you’re done.

When someone sends you a picture of their naked ass, this generally means said person wants you to insert your penis into said ass. I always assumed that if you’re okay with the whole anal insertion thing, kissing is an integral part of the deal. After all, I use my penis to get intimate. It never occurred to me some people seek anal pleasure without exposing themselves to the affection that makes the whole exercise worthwhile to me.

Guy #147 and I have sex without kissing. I try to turn up the eroticism by moaning my way through it and by changing position every few minutes, acting as if someone is watching and I need to convince that person the two of us are having a good time. I am of course only trying to convince myself my date is not a complete waste of my time and energy. My gut wants to kiss Guy #147, establish the bond we have, but there’s no bond to celebrate. Proximity brought us together. Closeness not so much.

Having sex with Guy #147 is unfulfilling, hot as he is. Even though I get to own nearly every part of his body, I can’t help but feel rejected. As much of a willing bottom Guy #147 is, my ‘Pretty Woman’ comes off as a prude.

Conversely, I have no way of knowing if Guy #147 is having a good time. Without kissing, touching each other’s face and holding each other’s head our sex is almost entirely mechanical. Whatever feelings my date might have, I’m not privy to them.

About 15 minutes into our relationship I decide I’ve had enough and do the only sensible thing: Coming. I give Guy #147 a minute or so to do the same, but with no lip action at my disposal I feel completely inept and ‘disaroused’, a made-up word that perfectly sums up a made-up connection.

Guy #147 and I get dressed and I leave quickly. He will go on to hit me up online a couple of times over the next few years, and while I politely respond to his messages each time he does, I hold off on meeting up with him a second time.

Sex without kissing. It’s as frustrating as playing a grand piano with your butt. Richard Gere, Julia Roberts and Guy #147 taught me that.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 2 years and counting
FORMAT: One time sex date followed by highly intermittent online chats that don’t lead anywhere
SEX SCORE (0 = Making out with a grand piano <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 5.5

Guys #114, #115, #116 and #117 – The most dangerous drug of all…

Drugs will forever be a part of our lives, whether it’s nicotine, weed, alcohol, cocaine, XTC, roofies, poppers, ketamine, speed or the most dangerous drug of all: Intimacy.

The high Intimacy provides is unrivaled by any substance, but like all drugs, Intimacy is only fun by the token of its risk: Dosage is key and I for one suck at dosing Intimacy. Go easy on the Intimacy and you can’t help but crave a little extra. Go overboard and you OD on your own misery.
Added to this, Intimacy is the one drug you can’t dose by yourself. At the very least it requires two people to get it right. Achieving a successful high on Intimacy is like walking toward each other on a high wire and exchanging a hug without plunging to your death.

On the surface dating is about finding ways to fit genitals into other people and the gay scene is unbelievably facilitating in that respect. Scratch the surface however and you quickly find people hiding behind their genitals, people like Guy #114, #115, #116 and #117, people whose genitals led their tepid quest for Intimacy.

Guys #114 through #117 all had one thing in common: I had nothing to offer them except my body. It’s not that I didn’t like them or that I didn’t find them attractive. I simply had no Intimacy to give. Not everybody you meet is someone you want to cuddle on a high wire. At the same time everyone – and I do mean everyone – is constantly on alert for someone willing to do Intimacy together. We say we’re not in it for the feelings the same way people read Playboy for the articles: We lie.

The result is a scene where everybody tries to maintain his balance and when sex becomes a commodity, people tend to plummet.

Guy #114 was a kindergarten teacher. I taught him a lesson by laying him down on my countertop for a good five minutes. It was fun, but all the while I couldn’t help but imagine this slutty piece of human standing in front of a dozen toddlers singing songs about Old MacDonald and his farm. Sure, kindergarten teachers can be greedy bottoms as much as anyone, but I’m not the type who enjoys thinking about toddlers during sex.

Guy #115 was a reclusive Asian who for reasons I will never understand neglected to shave his armpits. They were sweaty and disgusting. He contacted me many times after our first and only date, but his armpits were sweaty and disgusting.

Guy #116 had a gorgeous body featuring an interesting skin condition. He assured me it wasn’t contagious, but I wasn’t quite comfortable going to fifth base with someone who needed Vaseline literally everywhere but his fifth base. Still, when his skin condition indeed turned out to be benign, I met up with him a few more times, until he became irritated I couldn’t meet up with him every week. Irritation soon led to anger, to which I tend not to respond.

Guy #117 was unremarkably cute. The sex was unremarkably pleasant. He wanted to meet up another time, but I deemed him too unremarkable. The end.

If Guys #114 through #117 would ever ask me why I held off on seeing them again, I would tell them I was just in it for the sex, but it would of course be a lie. I lie as often as I’m lied to. We all know we lie, but it’s not like we have a choice: Intimacy is a dangerous drug. We all crave it as much as we fear it and when we find it all the strength in the world isn’t enough to prevent us from getting addicted to it. I didn’t reject Guys #114 through #117 because the sex was bad or because there was anything fundamentally wrong with them. They simply couldn’t give me the high I was looking for and I let them plummet the moment I realized they looked for it in me.

I’m an addict, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything in search of my fix. It’s what I do to people. It’s what people do to me. One day I might find an addict like me, someone equally bad at dosing Intimacy. It will be awesome, mind blowing, overwhelming and possibly life shattering.

I want it to be today, but I hope the day never comes.

“Ballad of the sad young men”

Sing a song of sad young men, glasses full of rye
All the news is bad again, kiss your dreams goodbye

All the sad young men, sitting in the bars
Knowing neon lights, and missing all the stars

All the sad young men, drifting through the town
Drinking up the night, trying not to drown

All the sad young men, singing in the cold
Trying to forget, that they’re growing old

All the sad young men, choking on their youth
Trying to be brave, running from the truth

Autumn turns the leaves to gold, slowly dies the heart
Sad young men are growing old, that’s the cruelest part

All the sad young men, seek a certain smile
Someone they can hold, for just a little while

Tired little girl, does the best she can
Trying to be gay, for a sad young man

While a grimy moon, watches from above
All the sad young men, who play at making love

Misbegotten moon shine for sad young men
Let your gentle light guide them home again
All the sad, sad, sad, young men

(Frances Landesman)

Relationship summaries:

Guy #114
LENGTH: 15 minutes
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to Darth Vader <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 7.5

GUY #115
LENGTH: 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to Jabba the Hut <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 6.5

GUY #116
LENGTH: 2 months
FORMAT: Occasional bootie call on speed dial
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to Yoda <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.2

GUY #117
LENGTH: 2 hours
FORMAT: Sex date
SEX SCORE (0 = Waking up next to George Lucas <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8

Guy #56 – Horny Loner, Sneaky Cheater.

Hotels are great for cheating. One might even say that infidelity supports the Hilton the way zombies define The Walking Dead.

Guy #56 was funny, cute, smart, Asian and not single.

I was single and had a hotel room at my disposal.

As predicted by Newton, sneaky cheaters and horny loners are attracted to each other.
Craigslist did the rest.

Guy #56 had made it very clear things needed to be discrete. I had made it very clear I was fluent in getting Guys past the lobby.

It was obvious Guy #56 was nervous about making it to my room unnoticed. Unlike me he was a local. People knew him, and his husband. His husband’s entire family knew him. He was part of the community. And it was the holiday season. Christmas is the worst time to be caught cheating.

Of course being a horny loner I didn’t care much for any of that. I just wanted Guy #56 up in my hotel room because he was funny, cute, smart and Asian.

Once we were confined to the safety of my hotel room Guy #56 and I clicked like peanut butter and chocolate. It was unexpectedly good, but it felt like doing something bad. His husband would be devastated to learn his better half was going to third base underneath someone else’s mistletoe.

At the same time I felt I was doing Guy #56 a favor. Something was obviously lacking in his marriage. I got the impression he loved his husband, except in the company of his husband’s family. Guy #56 probably only cheated during the holiday season.

We had a more than jolly good time in my hotel room two times. Our last date was on December 24^th. In between sex he described me his Christmas dinner as he would be cooking it the day after.

The two of us could have enjoyed each other’s company the entire night. Sadly, Guy #56 needed to be home in time to defrost a turkey.
“Why don’t you guys just do noodles?” I asked.
“My husband is white,” Guy #56 said.
“Of course he is. I can tell you’re into white guys.”
I really liked how Guy #56 went along with my little racist joke. There’s nothing quite as intimate as exploring each other’s dark sides. Actually, there is: There’s nothing as intimate as exploring each other’s dark sides naked, which is what Guy #56 and I did.

A lot of times when I meet people I get bored by how serious they are about everything. I find sarcasm and dark humor to be notably lacking in many Guys. Guy #56 was my kind of dark. He could have been my husband in a parallel universe. I might very well have been the one going solo under my own mistletoe. Perhaps I will someday.

It wasn’t the first time I had sex with a sneaky cheater, but this time it felt bad for my karma.
Guy #56 struck me as a wonderful person. He left me with the realization that great people can be sneaky cheaters too.

It makes horniness all the lonelier for it.

Relationship summary

LENGTH: 2 x 2 hours
FORMAT: Loving sex dates
SEX SCORE (0 = Eating a mistletoe <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9.5

Guy #55 – Post-orgasmic cam session cool down.

When it comes to technology I always lag behind.
I survived the 1990s without internet. I didn’t get my first cell phone until 2002. I held on to this Nokia heavyweight until 2012, when Guy #115 gave me my first smartphone out of pity.

I was among the last privileged white people to go on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Technology in itself doesn’t repel me. I’ll buy it when I need it, not a moment sooner. If a trend is lasting it will find its way to me eventually.

By the end of 2009 I started exploring the world of MSN. To me it was like talking, only with fingers and usually not with people I knew.

Some conversations I had on MSN were okay, most were boring and pointless.

Until one day Guy #55 told me my laptop had a webcam.

Guy #55 was about 4000 miles away from me. I have no idea how we got to talking with each other, but the short version of the not so long story is that we ended up showing off our masturbatory skills in front of our respective webcams.

Cam sex was interesting.

I knew I would never make the effort to meet let alone do Guy #55 in real life. That made everything I said about how turned on I was a bit of a bright white lie.

A bright white lie in this case is typing something like I want to feel that cock inside of me so bad right now while in reality I was thinking It´s frustrating to type with only one hand. Why aren´t laptops with webcams ergonomically prepared for people engaging in cam sex? Surely the inventors of the web cam knew what it was going to be used for? It’s impossible to masturbate and type at the same time. Both require a completely different posture. So you either have to constantly interrupt what you’re doing or clumsily type with one hand while your eyes are mostly focused on seeing what the other Guy is doing.

Cam sex requires a lot of multitasking for a man.

The reason I engaged in a long distance cam session with Guy #55 was that I had never done it before. Like I said: I never look for technology. It always finds its way to me and when it does I usually end up feeling clumsy and incapable at first.

In fact, few situations are more awkward than a post-orgasmic cam session cool down with a stranger. There’s no cuddling, just plain naked awkwardness and still only one hand to type with. Figure out why.

;)

That’s what I ended up typing after Guy #55 and I had both cammed what we came for.
;) was the best lie I could do on one hand. I wanted to close my laptop and take a shower, but even at 4000 miles I chose to stay polite.

The most exciting part of ‘being’ with Guy #55 was actually the realization we live in an age where we can transmit our naked selves over thousands of miles. For free. As someone with vivid memories of the 1980s the technology was more exciting than Guy #55 itself.

They should design webcams that automatically fade to black five seconds after coming. It would have been the most honest way to progress my relationship with Guy #55: I honestly wanted it to be stopped dead in its tracks and never to be spoken of.

Instead Guy #55 and I ended up chatting for a while. I was despising my own politeness.

Guy #55 started insisting on meeting one day.

After our first and only online encounter he would regularly hit me up on my dating profiles. It’s not that I didn’t like him. He was just immensely focused on meeting up with me. It became a bit of a problem a few weeks later, when I moved back to our common home country, where distance is often measured in feet.

Politeness never ends in a spectacular fashion. I simply kept responding less and less to his messages, until I ignored him completely, regardless of how close we were. It has been well over two years since he tried to hit me up online.

I just realized that means he kept on trying for four years straight. Perhaps that means I wasn’t as clumsy as I felt.

I guess I’m better at technology than I give myself credit for.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 4 years
FORMAT: ;)
SEX SCORE (0 = Onion flavored toothpaste <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 2.5

Guy #47 – Finding friends in the wrong places…

I’m not sure what’s worse: Doing porn with someone you can’t stand or doing porn with someone you want to spend the night with.

Guy #47 had great looks, a good sense of humor and we seemed to really get each other.

The sex was very good, except for the fact there was a bearded guy with a camera minding our every business all the time.

It’s not that I resented the bearded camera guy. If it wasn’t for him Guy #47 and I never would have met. It’s just that I wanted Guy #47 and me to me more than just colleagues.

We probably could have been, were it not for the fact that I was moving to another country mere days after our shoot.

I did have a lot of fun riding the subway with Guy #47 on our way back home. It’s always a thrill to meet someone who seems to really get you. It felt like I made a friend. He too regretted the fact I was leaving the country so soon.

Guy #47 and I kept in touch through Facebook for a while. I think I would have enjoyed Guy #47’s friendship as much as the benefits that would have been a part of it. It would have been nice to hook up with Guy #47 in the absence of a cameraman.

Of all my porn shoots this had been the only time I was sorry when it was over.

The summer of 2009 was one of sexual exploration. Guy #47 was my penultimate date of that period, signaling the end of it. I was days away from moving back to my home country and trying to figure out what to do with my life.

The summer had been brief as it had been enjoyable, much like my time with Guy #47.

I remembered the time I still thought having sex with guys was just a bisexual experiment. I literally believed I could never have feelings for a Guy at one point.

Now that I was leaving a city in which I had met so many of them, I realized I would miss some.

It was awful doing porn with a passive aggressive straight guy. It was just as awful saying goodbye to a colleague I very much wanted to cuddle up with.

It had been a summer of exploration, but I never realized what I was looking for, what fueled my journey in the first place. I figured it was suppressed horniness from my closet years. While that was part of it, the actual reason I had been on a gay hunting spree was a much more valid one.

I was looking for a human connection.

It was both liberating and frustrating to find one on a porn set.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 3 hours
FORMAT: Collegial
SEX SCORE (0 = When a pharmaceutical commercial lists the side effects of their product <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.7

Guy #10 – Why I’ve been such a bad kisser for so long…

Our lips are basically a part of our body that’s turned inside-out. That’s what makes kissing so intimate: It’s when our insides touch, connect and shake tongues.

In my experience it’s not uncommon for sex dates to not feature any kissing, for the same reason Julia Roberts refused to kiss Richard Gere throughout Pretty Woman: Kissing a complete stranger mimics the intimacy I believe all human beings both crave and fear. Kissing is a slippery slope.

Personally, I’m a big fan of kissing. Sex is infinitely better when lip-to-lip action is on the menu.

Except in the case of Guy #10.
Not all lips are created equal.

It would be unfair to say Guy #10 was a bad kisser. It’s just that his labial anatomy had completely failed him. That much became clear the moment our lips touched.

From a distance Guy #10’s lips appeared completely ordinary. Only upon first contact did I discover he lacked the capability to move his lips in any meaningful way. They were just there, stiff and motionless, tight and cold, lifeless and dry.

I’m not judging Guy #10. I for one have quite a few incurable genetic setbacks myself: I can’t blink my eyes separately, I can’t make my ears move, I can’t curl up my tongue, I can’t whistle, I can’t get my jaw to make that clicking sound, I can’t separate my ring finger from my middle finger like Dr. Spock. The list of my innate fallacies is endless.

However, lipwise I’m pretty well endowed and to me, kissing is a dichotomous variable. Either you kiss or you don’t.

Except of course in the case of Guy #10.

I imagine kissing a blow-up doll most closely resembles the touch of Guy #10’s lips. I could sense he was trying to keep up with mine, but he didn’t stand a chance. His lips were like a sphinx cat fencing off a T-Rex.
Guy #143 once told me I kiss too fiercely. I think my aggressive kissing philosophy has been a contributing factor in losing many guys over the years. Sometimes I wish I had known before Guy #143 straight out told me my kissing was a bit too much “in his face”. Guy #10 could have benefitted from that.

Apart from his lips being small and cold, perhaps the main reason Guy #10 couldn’t keep up was because he wasn’t looking for any intimacy. I was, even though I wasn’t aware of it at the time. The two of us got along really nicely, had done some pleasant conversational stuff and the sex just flowed naturally from thereon out. I must have felt some sort of connection. I kissed him to seal that connection. He kissed me because it was obligatory foreplay.

We didn’t kiss long. The rest of our date went like clockwork. It would be our only date, though. It was nice to regularly run into Guy #10 at our local gay bar for a while. We shared a nice memory but didn’t feel the need to expand on that. We had both erased ourselves from our to do-lists. I think I could have made him hungry for more if I hadn’t gorged on him so much. Then again, that’s why I wasn’t hungry for more in the first place.

Sadly, it would take me a very long time to realize not everyone likes to be kissed by a T-Rex.

I kissed too eagerly for years at an end. I never consciously entered the gay scene in search of love or something sappy. It took me years to finally learn it’s always been exactly that what’s driven me: Love, or something sappy. I must have unconsciously expressed that feeling in my kissing technique.

Unfortunately, Guy #10’s lips were the opposite of sappy.

I apologize for wreaking havoc on his inside-out.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: ± 4 years
FORMAT: One-time sex date, followed by a few years of politely greeting each other at random encounters
SEX SCORE (0 = kissing a frog that doesn’t turn into a prince <–> 10 = the best sex ever): 6.5